nfm24 wrote:
He didn't finish 3rd at two major tmts, he reached the semis at two. He won one match out of six at the SheBelieves Cup. I'm not saying he's rubbish, I'm just saying that for a relatively high level job in men's football, I don't think anyone (in Britain) looks to women's managers anyway, even if they are successful, unless they are desperate. If he had won the World Cup, and not had the moral issues, then maybe. But I think a lot of people view it similar to success with a youth team.

Would Sunderland, or a similar club, have picked up Sampson?

For 3rd in the Euros I'm using my True Bronzer rules, Austria are more of a fairytale run but England earned more 'points' over the course of the tournament. Plus Sampson/Wales narrative.

Would Sunderland take Sampson? No (mainly because of that whole 'culture' slanted against trying anything too different), but when you look at what they've had since Large Samuel left (unfortunately under Big Sam rules I have to include Coleman in that with his current 0% record), you can easily argue that surely he couldn't have done worse, if nothing else would have brought more enthusiasm than a man who looks like he has a daily appointment with the dementors from Harry Potter.

And while Norway like I mentioned earlier aren't exactly a shining example of success on the pitch, surely it's better to at least consider these women's coaches when they do a good job, otherwise how much progress has really been made? If David Unsworth gets together a few half-decent results for Everton he'll probably get that job on a permanent contract (and even if he fails after that could still find relatively decent work by virtue of 'being at Everton'), all off of the experience of a a few games worth of caretaker stints and Everton U23, by all accounts only getting his break from being the most senior member of staff left when someone got sacked.

So all it sometimes takes is a few games after lucking into a 'top role' and you're suddenly 'proven' with few questions asked, a more recent example that actually happened would be Craig Shakespeare. It gets by largely unnoticed by the media but they then interrogate the credentials of someone who earned their stripes (usually a lot more of them) elsewhere (see: Marco Silva, "does he get 'this league', etc."). Is there some difference between youth/women's football and men's club football? Yes, but I don't think it's as vast as people like to make out, football's football.

Anyway, as international football connoisseurs we'd surely think Sampson was already at the peak of football in a way, and that like Coleman if he joined a professional men's club he'd be taking a step down (albeit with much much higher pay) .

The caretaker taking over is normally just a continuity matter of convenience, if the board haven't lined anyone up before the vacancy occurred. I agree that being in the right place at the right time often outweighs any number of other qualifications, but this isn't just a football issue.

It's the totally left-field appointments that are most perplexing, e.g. Gary Neville to Spain.

nfm24 wrote:It's the totally left-field appointments that are most perplexing, e.g. Gary Neville to Spain.

That one's not really the best example, he was mates with Peter Lim (owner of both Valencia and Salford City where Gary & friends had a stake), and Phil was already there as the assistant. A surprising headline at the time but with the details underneath it was really easily explained.

Without the benefit of hindsight, at the time he was a very highly-rated TV pundit, 'changed the game' for Sky Sports and all that, had also done some time as the England assistant. Those aren't nessecarily reasons to class it as a good decision, but there were reasons they could point to.

One of the biggest red flags at the time though should have been anyone that heard his commentary, man couldn't even pronounce Moreno ("Morayneo") properly.

Anyway, I'm quite a fan of when these pundits end up failing in management and crawling back to their TV jobs (Shearer and Neville being the biggest examples), then a week or two of gentle ribbing later it's like nothing ever happened, back criticising the more successful coaches with the power of hindsight/multiple replays.

mattsanger92 wrote:Without the benefit of hindsight, at the time he was a very highly-rated TV pundit, 'changed the game' for Sky Sports and all that, had also done some time as the England assistant. Those aren't nessecarily reasons to class it as a good decision, but there were reasons they could point to.

What about the reasons why it was a terrible decision, which we discussed on another thread (without hindsight!).

Agree on the last comment. Pundits who dabble dismally should be sacked from punditry also.

Back on the England women's job, luckily the article dispels the clickbaity headline but always worth reiterating that the job should go to the best candidate regardless of gender. There's a lot of institutional/societal problems that lead to a lack of female coaches, but giving one the biggest role in the women's game just because is not the solution.

mattsanger92 wrote:
Back on the England women's job, luckily the article dispels the clickbaity headline but always worth reiterating that the job should go to the best candidate regardless of gender. There's a lot of institutional/societal problems that lead to a lack of female coaches, but giving one the biggest role in the women's game just because is not the solution.

In possibly a follow-up to the Sampson allegations, The FA have now decided that implementing the NFL's 'Rooney Rule' (puns withheld) is a good way to show there's no institutional racism around.

Very iffy on this one, it's well-intentioned and provides more opportunity, but what does it do for the mindset/confidence of a minority candidate to think there's even a possibility they might only be there to meet a quota? More focus (maybe it already is) should be given to getting rid of and/or educating any discriminatory decision-makers in the game rather than a blanket rule that potentially raises more questions.

Meanwhile, a direct example arrives for coaches switching from women's to men's teams, John Herdman going female to male in Canada, although it could be argued that he's leaving the more prestigious role behind in that country...

nfm24 wrote:I'm interested to know whether the "ethnic minority" candidates have to be British.

Doubt it - that would be a discrimination in itself, surely? Or at least create a new web of questions.

And with "British" are you falling into that trap you hate of "England = UK" stereotypes (I know some of England's recent medal performances have come under Welsh guidance but still)? You'd have to assume they leave it technically open to all nationalities though, but as it's primarily for England national team jobs English will probably be preferred just as an obvious thing.

I'm wondering how they handle a situation where they've already identified the one person they want before advertising a job (or the recent 'promote from within' approach for Southgate, Boothroyd, and possibly Marley), do they have to go through all the formalities anyway?

nfm24 wrote:I'm interested to know whether the "ethnic minority" candidates have to be British.

Doubt it - that would be a discrimination in itself, surely? Or at least create a new web of questions.

Let's suppose that the five candidates for the England manager's position are Eddie Howe, Chris Hughton, Daniel Amokachi, Robert Mugabe, and Carlos Queiroz.
Which of those would qualify as a member of an ethnic minority under this "Rooney rule"?

You'd have to assume they leave it technically open to all nationalities though, but as it's primarily for England national team jobs English will probably be preferred just as an obvious thing.

Then they'd be discriminating against non-English, or non-British candidates.

Also, given that in recent news there are more and more cases of people not identifying with a particular gender, maybe this will follow into ethnicity, and people will object to being labelled in a particular ethnic group in the first place.

nfm24 wrote:Let's suppose that the five candidates for the England manager's position are Eddie Howe, Chris Hughton, Daniel Amokachi, Robert Mugabe, and Carlos Queiroz.
Which of those would qualify as a member of an ethnic minority under this "Rooney rule"?

Don't think it's about earmarking a specific candidate as 'the token' (which I'm presuming you're suggesting Howe or Queiroz would be in that line-up), the rule is just that at least one interviewee has to be "BAME", as the acronymers put it. The potential for 'tokenism' comes when there's one "BAME" in an otherwise white line-up of candidates.

It does say though that all interviewees are expected to meet a certain standard and that the rule doesn't apply if there are no suitable "BAME" applicants (if Mugabe has a self-awarded sporting qualification it probably doesen't translate to FIFA/UEFA badges), apparently it has been shown to improve coaching diversity in the NFL but in The FA's case the whole thing seems very vague and PR-ish.

nfm24 wrote:Then they'd be discriminating against non-English, or non-British candidates.

Think the theory's true around most of the world that if you can't get someone who's obviously better than what your country has available coaching-wise, it's preferable to get one of your own country's people to lead the team of your country's people, sometimes people will even accept (to a point) overlooking the former to get the latter as a point of pride. It's probably a technical form of discrimination but the nature of international football makes it a widely acceptable one, even if it's not as strict as the limitations the players face.

For what it's worth, the Welsh FA president recently commented "no English" for his Coleman-shaped vacancy and got forced into apology/backtracking mode, rightly for being so blatant and specific, but it's been obvious that the preference is for someone Welsh (which is the line he should have just kept to), an idea which most fans will agree with.

nfm24 wrote:Also, given that in recent news there are more and more cases of people not identifying with a particular gender, maybe this will follow into ethnicity, and people will object to being labelled in a particular ethnic group in the first place.

Re-learn the first rule of satire in the 2010's, "it's probably already real":

nfm24 wrote:Let's suppose that the five candidates for the England manager's position are Eddie Howe, Chris Hughton, Daniel Amokachi, Robert Mugabe, and Carlos Queiroz.
Which of those would qualify as a member of an ethnic minority under this "Rooney rule"?

Don't think it's about earmarking a specific candidate as 'the token' (which I'm presuming you're suggesting Howe or Queiroz would be in that line-up), the rule is just that at least one interviewee has to be "BAME", as the acronymers put it. The potential for 'tokenism' comes when there's one "BAME" in an otherwise white line-up of candidates.

I'm not saying anything about tokenism. I'm saying how do they decide who is what. In order to make sure to include a BAME candidate, the employers need to decide who is BAME and who isn't. But I'm saying that identifying someone's ethnicity, and whether that is part of a minority (in Britain or in their own country) isn't necessary a simple task. In that list of 5 people, who is BAME and who isn't?

nfm24 wrote:Then they'd be discriminating against non-English, or non-British candidates.

Think the theory's true around most of the world that if you can't get someone who's obviously better than what your country has available coaching-wise, it's preferable to get one of your own country's people to lead the team of your country's people, sometimes people will even accept (to a point) overlooking the former to get the latter as a point of pride. It's probably a technical form of discrimination [...]

Yes that is discrimination. If you're preferring people based on nationality alone, when other nationalities are eligible.

nfm24 wrote:In order to make sure to include a BAME candidate, the employers need to decide who is BAME and who isn't. But I'm saying that identifying someone's ethnicity, and whether that is part of a minority (in Britain or in their own country) isn't necessary a simple task. In that list of 5 people, who is BAME and who isn't?

Ah, agreed. While I wouldn't put it past The FA to have some dodgy in-house system to make those calls(which would result in Houghton (probably), Amokachi and Mugabe being your BAMEs), I'd presume in the interests of common sense (however much of it's applicable in this scenario) it would come down to one of those diversity forms you fill out with certain job applications, self-reporting and that.

But this is the kind of thing I mean by raising more questions than answers, if Freddy Eastwood or Tom Hogli applied for a job they should surely qualify as 'Minority Ethnicities' (Romani and Sapmi respectively), but uninformed sections of the media would take The FA to town if those two were beneficiaries of the scheme as they don't look 'diverse'. That's why it all seems like it's heading the way of being meaningless PR for the symptom (if it isn't already) rather than looking for and fixing the causes.

mattsanger92 wrote:But this is the kind of thing I mean by raising more questions than answers

Exactly. Black British managers would count as BAME. Black foreign managers? We don't know. The precise wording of the rule, and probably the terms it references, would need to be studied carefully to be sure.

Obviously I hope he does well and proves me wrong but fans are going to have a lot less patience with him than some of the other names that were interviewed. Apparently the friendly-dodging in his playing days was due to fear of having a boot thrown at him (not that he wasn't still complicit), just got a few other things to turn people around on now then...

Whoever Wales appoint is going to struggle to go upwards. The question is more, can they sustain a decent level for long enough to qualify for the next Euros.

Not sure if you're taking me too seriously there, no violence was threatened (as far as I know), but it's still pretty pathetic from both Ferguson and Giggs, whether Blackmore's story is true or not. Just raises a lot more questions, like how does Ferguson justify 'allowing' Hughes/Blackmore to play for Wales but specifically denies Giggs? And the "can't risk the youngster" part kind of washes off when they were pulling the same trick in Giggs' 30's...

And when the former "world's most expensive player" rushes back from injuries just to represent his country, how's someone who had the polar opposite attitude for same country meant to inspire the squad the former plays in? He's had a great playing career at club level which might command some respect but that can only get you so far (unless you're Zidane pre-this season). He does seem to have a bit of an ego about him too, as evidenced by his 'Premier League or nothing' jobhunting at club level. Again, hope he lives up to his press conference words but even success won't shake away everything.

Of course Coleman's a difficult act to follow for anyone, but it's not as though everyone's expecting another Don't Take Me Home. Would be great of course (but tinged with bitterness merely from how Giggs is as a person), but just qualifying for Euro 2016 was a dream come true, was disappointing not to get to the World Cup but even that was mainly just from ending up with too many draws (the only defeat came against when pushing for a win).

Giggs' best bet (and the least he could do to get people onside) is to keep as much of the previous structure and spirit in place as possible (doesn't include tactics etc.) and to stay loyal to his contract, think most people can see that, but I wouldn't put it past a man who cheated on his wife with his brother's wife for 8 years (and also tried to get a superinjunction to hide it which just made him mocked further when it eventually failed) to make a stupid decision regarding either...

What I meant was, why does Giggs have to do what Ferguson says, as if he's in some sort of military boot camp? He can take his own decisions. If he wanted to play for Wales he could have done so, even if it was against his club manager's wishes, just like so many African/Asian/Caribbean players had to do over the years. And they had to travel a lot further. Regarding your last paragraph, probably Clayton Blackmore is the one in the story with the dodgiest past.

There's something about Giggs which always reminds me of a rabbit in headlights every time I see him giving an interview.

nfm24 wrote:What I meant was, why does Giggs have to do what Ferguson says, as if he's in some sort of military boot camp?

Of course, that's what I was getting at too, the only minor defence being that Ferguson could probably do a good impression of a boot camp officer, but why would you want to work for someone like that in the first place? Most of his club team-mates were international regulars anyway (the odd typical 'injury' and Roy Keane suppositorial threat aside), I don't buy this idea that Ferguson would focus his energy on protecting Giggs and only Giggs from the horrors of international duty, which leads to the idea that he was the only one that could be persuaded.

The BBC today went in-depth on the issue, they're trying to be balanced but it just looks like more damning evidence, the real kicker is the number of times he was magically fit for the next club fixture.

Funny highly misrepresentative part comparing Giggs to Bale, technically their respective 'competitive match %' is close but it doesn't factor in the fact that Wales really don't play many friendlies, or that Bale is typically genuinely injured for months either side of an absence for Wales. And even when he's been injured Bale often travels to the team camp just to be part of the group...

The question should not be "did Giggs play" in a friendly, but rather "was Giggs available." There's no point counting the friendly matches where Giggs/Bale were both left out by choice of the Wales coach in order to try other players.

Sure, but it's only very rarely that tends to happen anyway. Wales' most recent match against Panama being a recent example of course, but in the main still rare. I highly doubt Giggs missed 30 friendlies in his career due to whoever was in charge wanting to experiment, it would have been used as the go-to excuse by/for him years ago if that was ever the case.

Would also require a ridiculous amount of archive-trawling to see what the coach's intentions were in each of those matches, but then this study had details down to Giggs' presence on the subs bench the next weekend, so can't need too much more effort...

mattsanger92 wrote:Would also require a ridiculous amount of archive-trawling

If only there was a forum for that.

It's not necessary to psychically detect the coaches' intentions. It would just be a case of finding the announcements of the squads before the matches. In other words, was Giggs part of the squad but left out of the match itself. For example, I recall watching a turgid match between Wales and Northern Ireland circa 2007 where the camera spent more time zooming in on Giggs in the stands than on the events on the pitch.

nfm24 wrote:It's not necessary to psychically detect the coaches' intentions. It would just be a case of finding the announcements of the squads before the matches. In other words, was Giggs part of the squad but left out of the match itself. For example, I recall watching a turgid match between Wales and Northern Ireland circa 2007 where the camera spent more time zooming in on Giggs in the stands than on the events on the pitch.

That would be the match near the end of BBC's table which listed him as 'No, but travelled'.

Again, without checking every single squad pre or post-match, I'd imagine they put his name down most of the time (eventually out of hope more than expectation you'd have to think), there's not too many scenarios even in friendlies where a squad gets announced without the star players unless there's a long-term injury, strongest possible team/boost ticket demand and all that. But I did track down one example (the 2003 home match against ), Giggs was indeed named in the original squad that the other table states he played no part in come matchtime.

I also want to know why the FA of Wales felt unable to enforce the call up. Why did they appear to just accept Manchester United's attempts to block Giggs being called up? Did they make some sort of deal, e.g. they would get him released earlier for competitive games if they left him out of friendlies or something?

I've only just looked into the details of how the SFA handled this... what the hell is the point of publically identifying your preferred candidate but then offering substantially less than he would get if he stayed in his current job? Utter idiocy. Basic preparation: find out what your budget is, and then find out who is available within that. I expect to see some SFA resignations over this clownfest.

If Scotland still want an 'other Home Nation' coach and you really don't want Giggs, could cross the gender lines and nab yourself a brand new Phil Neville, barely out of it's packaging? Similar background and experience levels to the Giggs but far less baggage, unless you count this state of an article...